Green Lantern: First FlightOriginal
Release Date - July 28th, 2009 (DTV Only)When Hal
Jordan first becomes a Green Lantern, he is put under the
supervision of senior Lantern, Sinestro, only to
discover that his so-called mentor is part of a secret
conspiracy that threatens the entire Green Lantern Corps.

Review (Zach Demeter)Of all of the DC Universe
DTVs to come out to date Green Lantern: First Flight
seems to be the least talked about. Perhaps it’s because we knew
it’d been in production for a while now, but the overall
anticipation for this film has been less intense among fans than
the previous outing (Wonder Woman). With a live-action
Green Lantern flick all but ready to start production, this
animated outing is a nice way to prepare audiences for those not
familiar with the DC Comics character, although those expecting
a complete origin story should look elsewhere. After delving
into the origins of Hal Jordon in Justice League: The New
Frontier the DC Universe crew opted not to do a full retread
of his beginnings and, instead, nearly have his entire origins
wrapped up by the time the introductory credits begin to roll.

The synopsis given for this film is simple, but quite
frankly it sums up the film succinctly and perfectly. Despite
not being an origin story, it’s still very much a beginners
journey (hence the whole First Flight moniker after all).
This causes issues (for me, anyway) that I’ll get into later,
but as far as stories go the early descriptor of “intergalactic
cop story” is fairly apt. I forget which one of the producers
described it as such or where that was mentioned the first time,
but it stuck with me with all of the press releases and
interviews that were released for the film. As such I was
already prepared for a film that wasn’t tied to Earth…which may
be the best way to step into this film, as it in no way feels
like a mere elongated episode of a past DC TV series or anything
of the sort.

With each one of these DC Universe films
it’s easy to sit down and write a review immediately praising
the films more “adult” themes and tones and it seems with each
film I write almost exactly that…so it annoys me that I have to
write the same thing again. In an interview with writer Alan
Burnett he said that he knew the audience he was writing for
from the start and as such he chose to “push the envelope” for
that audience right from the start, noting that you could always
“pull back later.” This isn’t all that hard to believe when
watching the film as there never really once feels like any kind
of pandering to younger audiences; the closest we get is a few
glances from Kilowog or squirlish chatter from Ch’p, but never
from our main characters. Hal Jordan rarely cracks a joke or
says some corny catch phrase in accordance with a construct he
created with his ring; he mostly just lets his prior comments
fuel his later actions. To give you an example there’s a part in
the film where he states that he’s dealing with a “bug problem;”
he later unleashes a giant fly swatter and giant shoe to deal
with them. They’re visual gags, but it’s hard to call these
childish as that’s just the character of Jordan (something I
heard relentlessly as Justice League/Unlimited was on the
air and complaints that John Stewart wasn’t creative with his
constructs).

So the film is appropriately adult in both
tone and storytelling (and dialogue; there’s significantly more
cursing this time around, but only in a few instances does it
actually feel forced or out of place…but, even then that’s
debatable. I think more than it’s just not often you hear
cursing in superhero films, regardless of live action or
animation), but how is the story itself? As previously stated
it’s a really simple story about betrayal within the ranks of
the Lantern Corp and if you’re a fan of the series or just able
to pick up on very obvious cues then the eventual betrayal of a
few of the Corp members won’t come as any surprise, but it’s
still a fairly well fleshed out story regardless. I think that’s
the films only real flaw—the ultimate predictability of it all.
Thankfully there was at least one surprise for me as I knew next
to nothing about the Corp aside from what I’d seen in animation
previously, but I’ll leave that little bit alone for others to
discover themselves, should they so desire. But that moment
aside, the film was pretty easy to see coming from a mile away.

Other issues I had with the film were really minor
things; Jordan’s incredibly quick learning of the rings
functions, for one. Within minutes he was constructing a giant
woven basket to transport something in and he had little trouble
defending himself (at first) against higher ranking Corp
members. It’s relatively minor in the long run, but it’s worth
noting just because it’s such a fast paced first part of the
film. There’s also no real reaction from Jordan in terms of all
of the aliens around him—I guess we’re supposed to assume that
he’s heard of the Corp in some capacity or that knowledge of a
vast world of alien life forms is a well known fact on Earth.
Granted Jordan also gets a crash course in the alien worlds
later on in the film, but the way the character of Jordan is
painted here is a lot less romantic than what we got in The
New Frontier.

Again I’m not complaining about the
lack of time spent on the origin…I’m thankful we didn’t have to
sit through that again, but considering the film starts out
before Jordan’s a Green Lantern, it just feels all too rushed.
Perhaps if it’d started with him already in the suit for a
little while at least and been given some kind of Watchmen-like
intro with flashbacks during the opening credits…I don’t know,
that’d require a whole story restructure in of itself too, but
at least it wouldn’t have seemed like such an abrupt set of
skills that Jordan learned almost instantaneously. There’s also
the problem of us not even getting to know Jordan all that well
either; it’s mostly Sinestro’s movie up until the end when our
hero triumphs (spoiler? Eh…hardly).

The movie does feel
slightly uneven in its pacing the more I think about it…but I
did find myself enjoying it in a way similar to a good…well, a
cop drama. There are sluggish elements at times, but it’s mostly
wrapped up in a solid story and great supporting characters that
get a surprisingly large amount of screen time. Not to mention
the animation of the film itself is surprisingly good; I’d
recently watched Wonder Woman and couldn’t believe how
almost Disney-ish it looked (something I didn’t really pick up
on the first time). With Green Lantern: First Flight it’s
gone in another direction with the animation looking decidedly
more anime. This isn’t a bad thing, for those freaking out; it’s
still American looking in the movements, but the action
sequences, the amount of character detail, the…fantastic amounts
of destruction, the broken bones (some of the bent back fingers
look genuinely painful…and I winced quite a bit at one
characters death…again, one I’ll leave for you to discover
yourself) and smoke that wisps around (was that some Return
of the Joker smoke in there? I couldn’t tell…)…it all just
looks a lot higher in production value than some earlier DC
Universe efforts. Which is to be expected; these films aren’t
all meant to look like Superman Doomsday did and I have
to say I’m really very surprised by how brilliant this one
looked. The color palette got a bit drab at times as the alien
worlds all seemed to look the same and the Sinestro / Cuch chase
was particularly drab looking with the rather mundane
backgrounds flying by….but aside from those few elements, the
worlds and animation of First Flight are damn nice
looking and I can only hope that Telecom Animation gets a hold
of future DC Universe productions. Of course the CGI used in the
film was incredibly awkward and ugly looking at times; I’d
figured they’d found a way to not make it look so awkward, but
we were nearly back at Justice League Unlimited levels
with this one.

Voice actors…I honestly have nearly zero
complaints here. My only real qualm is with Michael Madsen as
Kilowog, but I think that has more to do with me used to him
having the deeper rasp of Dennis Haysbert, but Madsen eventually
grew on me to the point I didn’t really notice it. Everyone else
looked and sounded terrific; Victor Garber as Sinestro
especially. Garber’s been around television a lot lately and
he’s played pretty much everything from evil villains to caring
fathers and his range as Sinestro is really terrific. Helfer
seems underused as Boodikka, but nonetheless she’s an aural
pleasure to hear. Due to Jordan’s relative quietness for what
seems like the majority of the film we don’t hear much from
Meloni, but what we do is pleasing as well. I really don’t have
much to say about the voice acting since it was so perfect—which
is to be expected when Andrea Romano is behind the casting.

I think the greatest compliment I can pay to this film is
this is the first DC Universe title I watched where I felt like
I was watching a story that was genuinely adult in nature—not
just in visuals and dialogue, but in the themes it dealt with.
It was also the one that had the least pandering to the younger
audiences by playing it safe at times; yes, I know Wonder
Woman sent heads flying off of shoulders, but that even
seemed to me like something that was done just because it could
have been. It’s hard to put into words what I mean exactly, as
even though there have been more violent depictions in other DC
Universe films, sometimes it just felt like it was there because
they could; to me, for Green Lantern, it just felt like
the action and violence that was there was all much more organic
and natural. Not to knock the previous film as I’ve enjoyed
those as well, but Green Lantern just feels more grown up
to me.

I don’t feel particularly over or underwhelmed by
Green Lantern: First Flight. There are no real moments
that stick out to me as overly jaw dropping or pleasing to
behold; the fights, while exciting, just didn’t have much of a
punch (again, aside from the one death) to really separate
themselves from something we’ve seen before and were I not so
entrenched in the world of DC animation I would probably find
this film even more amazing to behold…but as is I’m merely
satisfied with it. As I said before there wasn’t a lot of hype
to build this film up, simply because it seemed like there
wasn’t a lot to get excited about with this one…and while that
could still be true, it’s still something I Recommend.

Review (James Harvey)With Green Lantern
experiencing a major resurgence in the comics lately, and with a
live-action big screen adventure on the way, it's the perfect
time to give this popular hero his own animated feature, and
that's exactly what we're given. Green Lantern: First
Flight is the latest feature from the DC Universe Animated
Original Movies line and it's definitely a rousing tale. It's
not perfect, which I'll get into after the synopsis below, but
it's definitely a movie that brings most of Green Lantern's
colorful history to life. Green Lantern: First Flight has
its up and down, but it still manages to come together to create
a fantastic outer-space romp.

As described countless
times before, this movie is essentially "Training Day in
space." Our hero Hal Jordan is taken under the wing of veteran
Green Lantern Corp member Sinestro and, as you can expect,
things get pretty complicated really fast. Jordan finds himself
way over his head, enveloped in a conspiracy that could bring
down everything. It's not the most original story, but it works
for this character, adding a welcome new wrinkle to the Green
Lantern mythos. While the comics have leaned on the more law
enforcement trappings of the Green Lantern lore for some time,
writer Alan Burnett is able to to make it feel pretty fresh by
using that angle as our introduction to this world, and it's
pretty successful.

While the film does have some
problems, which I'll get to in a little bit, I found the
creative team did a good job putting everything together for Green
Lantern: First Flight. It's a straight-forward movie, one
that doesn't deviate from it's path one bit. Heavily based on
the police procedural theme you'd find on nearly any channel on
any given night in prime-time, Green Lantern: First Flight
follows Jordan and Sinestro through a host of creative designed
alien locales, each peppered with unique designs and solid
visuals. To keep fans on the edge of their seat, most of these
scene are peppered with action sequence, usually involving
explosions or chases. Again, it's the standard fare, but it's
bolstered by the beautiful animation, solid directing, and
enjoyable script work. We've all seen these scenes before in
dozens of other places, but for all of them that feel the same,
you just can't beat seeing Hal Jordan taking out a suspect with
a chair constructed from his ring. That's the way to do
it! And we follow these beats as the story unfolds rather
predictably, but still enjoyable.

However, as a result of
the straight-forward story-telling, any character development in
the movie comes from the plot itself, and given how basic the
story is, there's not too much to be found. However, leaning
toward the basic archetypes of the characters does help the
movie's plot even if the audience isn't as emotionally invested
as it should be. Since the movie is pretty jam-packed as it is,
any attempts to fully flesh out these characters probably
wouldn't have worked. That being said, the more one-dimensional
portrayals do hinder a couple aspects of the movie, robbing a
couple moments of that extra punch, but it's nothing too
damaging. There's one scene in particular toward the end, when
Jordan comes face-to-face with one of the traitors within the
Green Lantern Corps that feels like there should be more to the
revelation, but comes up a bit short-handed since the audience
doesn't have that strong of an emotional connection to the
characters.

In terms of the
films' overall tone,
nothing ever feels too gratuitous here. While it's still be a
bit odd to hear some of my favorite comic characters spouting
off the occasional bad word, despite this becoming a more and
more frequent occurrence in today's comics, it never feels like
it was included for the sake of it. Same with the action. The
intensity is notched up, and we get some pretty graphic scene,
including one impalement and one broken hand that actually made
me wince upon seeing them, but it never feels like it was put in
there for the sake of the PG-13 rating. Not once does it seem
like Green Lantern: First Flight is pandering to a certain
audience. It's quite obvious that Alan Burnett had a certain
story and tone in mind from the get-go and stayed true to it.
The film definitely earns the PG-13 rating, but nothing seems
forced.

Another hindrance Green Lantern: First
Flight suffers from is the same problem as some of the
previous DC Comics direct-to-video animated features - the
running time feels too short. At 77 minutes, it seems as though
the movie is rushing to get through so much that it skips over
chunks here and there. I completely understand why the creators
behind the film rushed Hal Jordan into space, to give us this
great big space-police adventure, and it works for the most
part. That being said, giving us the Coles Notes version of his
origin, specifically his meeting with Abin Sur and how he
learned to use the ring, falls short. Even if they used the
opening credits to gloss over all of that, it would've worked
better then just not mentioning it. Based on the impression I
get from the movie, it seems incredibly easy to figure out how
to use and wield one of these rings, since Jordan seems able to
do it mere minutes after receiving it. While I give props for
the film finding away around the overbearing "this is how
everything began" origin stories that have held back so many
other movies, I actually wish we spent just a bit more time on
Earth for the sole reason of seeing Jordan figure out the ring,
as well as just more information on the ring itself (including
the need to charge it, the color spectrum, etc.). I believe it
would've helped considerably.

Jordan also seems to be the
least bit shocked about anything that happens in the movie,
accepting everything in stride. Whether it's his first meeting
with an intergalactic being, heading out into space to join an
intergalactic police force, watching his partner nearly murder
someone, etc., Jordan always seems remarkably calm about
everything. Given how epic in scope this movie is supposed to
be, and how this is Jordan's "first flight" into space, you'd
think the creative team would've played up that aspect at least
a little more. It should be surprise after surprise for him, and
it actually would've added a great character angle to Jordan,
but this is likely another casualty of the all-too-short running
time.

To piggyback off the previous paragraph, I found
the film also had a few problems with pacing likely due to the
aforementioned running time. We jump around considerably,
leaving explanations for most of the events presumably on the
cutting room floor. Assumptions and reveals are made too
quickly, but the story is relatively simple to follow (and I
don't mean that in a negative way) and should easily entertain
the casual fan or the die-hard fan with an open mind. It's a
deceptively simply story that does contain more than a few
subtle nuances here and there. The film moves ahead so fast that
it would be understandable if viewers are stricken with
confusion here and there, but the rapid-fire pace of the movie
shouldn't be a problem for most.

Even though the film
may struggle against character and pacing problems, it's easy to
push all of that aside and just get lost in the amazing
animation. Looking a little more anime-ish than usual, I
couldn't help but be stunned by some of the really breathtaking
animation on display. Explosions looked utterly beautiful, the
battles looked perfectly staged and executed, and nearly every
scene has a great flow to it. There was the odd hiccup here and
there, particularly during one sequence the film gets slathered
in this drab orange/brown hue, but this is a really gorgeous
looking animated feature. Really, really gorgeous. And while I
wouldn't call the blend of 3D animation and 2D perfect, I never
found it distracting but more complimentary of each other.
Whether it's something small, like the twisted look of a broken
hand, or destruction on a grand scale, Telecom Animation really
hit it out of the park here with Green Lantern: First
Flight. I understand that each film is set to look
different, and that may lend itself to some animating easier
than others, but you can't deny how great this film looks.

As what should come as no surprise, the voice cast assembled
here is top-notch, without a weak link in the bunch. Victor
Garber is pitch-perfect as Sinestro. Garber has that smooth,
sturdy voice that really adds to Sinestro's overall character,
helping avoid any of the damaging one-dimensional trappings this
character could easily fall under. Sinestro's cold and superior
attitude is perfectly captured by Garder. Same goes for
Christopher Meloni, playing Hal Jordan/Green Lantern, who really
seems to put his back into every single line. Meloni gives off a
very confident, no-nonsense persona for his Jordan, making for a
very believable character. Once again, voice director Andrea
Romano is able to nail every character and finds the perfect
voice for each. Even some skeptical casting, like Kurtwood Smith
as Kanjar Ro or Michael Madsen as Kilowog, just fall into place
so well.

Once again, time and time again, I feel the
need to make note of the great score by Robert Kral. These
direct-to-video animated features have resulted in some amazing
scores, and Green Lantern: First Flight is no different.
Whether it's great, lifting score over the main titles credits
or the bizarre background music heard during Sinestro and
Jordan's visit to a scummy alien bar, Kral compliments the
action on the screen without ever overtaking it. Easily toping
his work on Superman Doomsday, Kral creates another piece
of solid work that definitely adds to an already enjoyable
movie.

Looking at the movie overall, the pros do outweigh
the cons when it comes to Green Lantern: First Flight.
Where the pacing and story may have some problems, they can be
overlooked (to an extent) with amazing animation, an awesome
score, and a great cast. Casual fans will definitely find some
fun things to latch onto with Green Lantern: First Flight,
but die-hard enthusiasts may need to keep a more open mind
concerning some of the omissions and changes made to the Green
Lantern lore here and there. I don't feel underwhelmed by Green
Lantern: First Flight, but I wouldn't call it a home-run
smash. If I had to directly compare it to any of the previous DC
Universe Animated Original Movies, I'd have to compare it to the
likes of Wonder Woman. Green Lantern: First Flight
works in some of the same ways, by introducing us to these
characters and their world, but it also suffers from some of the
same drawbacks, such as the story awkwardly jumping ahead from
time to time. The story is good, don't get me wrong, but the
running time seems to take a toll on it. But, despite the flaws,
I'm still going to tout this animated feature as
Recommended. It has problems, yes, but I still found
myself having a blast with Green Lantern: First Flight
from beginning to end.

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